Where can I get a coronavirus test in SLO County? Here’s a list
If you are sick with a fever and believe you might have coronavirus, stay at home, isolate yourself from your family members, and call your doctor. If you live in San Luis Obispo County, you might be tested to confirm presence of the virus if you meet certain criteria.
Not everyone who wants to be tested can get tested, however. Availability is limited.
Despite a promise from the Food and Drug Administration in mid-March that 1 million tests for COVID-19 would be distributed across the country that week, availability to test for the virus remains limited across the United States.
As of Monday, around 250,000 tests has been performed nationwide, according to a tracking website created by researchers and journalists from The Atlantic. Of those, around 33,000 tested positive.
In some places in California, testing is being limited to only health care workers. A county in Colorado partnered with a biomedical company to test every resident to determine who might be protected from the virus and who remains at risk.
Below is a list of medical care facilities that have the ability to collect a specimen from you to send to a lab for testing. Public Health officials request residents call ahead first.
If you don’t have symptoms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests taking certain precautionary steps to protect yourself.
There is currently no vaccine to prevent COVID-19. The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus, according to the CDC.
The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person between people who are in close contact with one another through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Wash your hands, avoid touching your face and distance yourself from other people.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 1:29 PM.
